


January

by SirWulf



Series: January [1]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:13:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25355323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirWulf/pseuds/SirWulf
Summary: Illya turns ten in July.Twelve days later, the KGB come for his father.
Series: January [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1856068
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	1. 1941

It rains, the day they take Illya’s father away.  
It is breakfast time, when they come. Illya is late for school.

His mother is crying, by the time they leave, slumped over the table, and Illya does not know what to do. So he goes to school, and apologises for his lateness.

He comes home from school to find his mother crying in his father’s study.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, hovering in the doorway. His hair is wet; it is raining heavily outside. The study has been ransacked; there are papers spread across the floor, and ink spilled across his father’s desk, and the books have been pulled off the shelves.

His mother does not answer. She is sitting in his father’s chair, her head in her hands. Illya does the only thing he can think of, which is to go and get ready for his Young Pioneers’ meeting.

When he returns to the house his mother is waiting for him. She tells him to pack his suitcase and his satchel, because they are leaving.

He does not understand.

*

It is August when they take Illya’s father away, and the adults are worried.  
Illya’s father was a traitor. He knows this. Illya’s father has gone to a gulag, with other wicked people.

Illya lives with his mother in an apartment so small that it is a single room. Once he lived in a house, before his father was a traitor, but now he is lucky not to have to share the apartment with a stranger. Illya has changed schools, changed Young Pioneers groups. He bears his shame as well as he can.

He is ten years old.

*

It is August, and the sun is hot against Illya’s back. He is practicing his first aid with the other children.  
The adults are worried.

Illya is often hungry, now. His father was important. He knows this. His father’s importance brought food. He knows this too. Now that his father is a traitor Illya is hungry. His mother has not yet been assigned work, and so there is not enough food and so he is hungry.

The Germans are coming. The adults are frightened.  
Illya’s mother goes out in the evenings, and does not come back before Illya goes to school. Illya does not know what she does, but he knows it involves the men his father was friends with, before he was a traitor.

*

It is August, and Illya’s shoes are too small.  
He tells his mother this when he gets home from his Young Pioneers group one afternoon. She is standing by the tiny window in their apartment, smoking a cigarette.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she says.  
Illya’s mother looks tired. She has been assigned work, recently, factory work, and her hands are bandaged. Illya’s mother did not work in a factory, before. She worked with papers, Illya knows, although he knows little else about it.

Illya goes to play with the other children. One of the older boys, Klim, has a ball. Illya likes playing ball with the other children; he is good at it.  
Illya is good at most things.

Before – and all Illya’s thoughts and memories and feelings are divided into before and after, now – before, Illya had a room all to himself. He tries not to remember. It hurts, to remember the things he used to have – his own room, consistent hot water, a full stomach, a father.

*

It is September, and Illya sits outside his apartment and reads his book.

His mother is inside, with a man. Illya does not know the man, but he thinks he might have been a friend of Illya’s father, once, before Illya’s father was a traitor.

There are noises from inside. Illya does not think about them. Instead he thinks about music, about his book, about school, about the steady ticking of his father’s watch.  
Illya’s father is a traitor. Illya’s father used to swing him up into the air, when Illya was small, and call him his little wolf.

Illya sits and he waits, and one of the other children invites him to play hide-and-seek, and so he leaves his book with its too-big words and its oddly formal language and he goes to play.

*

It is September, and Illya is getting ready for bed when the man comes to their door.  
Illya’s bed is a mattress on the floor, shoved under his mother’s bed during the day.

He is buttoning his pyjamas when the man comes in. His mother is sitting on the bed. She is crying. Illya’s mother often cries, which is odd. People aren’t supposed to cry; they are supposed to be brave. That is what Illya is told at school; it is what Illya’s mother told him when he broke his arm last spring.

“Good evening, Dariya,” says the man, and Illya’s mother looks up. Illya's mother is called Dariya; she is from Ukraine, and so it is not spelled the right way.

“Good evening,” says Illya’s mother, and the man’s eyes turn to Illya.

“What a pretty boy,” the man says, and Illya blinks.

“Illya,” Illya’s mother says, “go wait outside.”

Illya picks up one of his books, and says “yes, mama,” and goes outside to sit with his back against the wall and his legs stretched out in front of him.

The sounds start. Illya does not like the sounds. He covers one ear with his hand and presses the other to his knee and tries to read his book. His head is tilted so it is hard to make out the words.  
He gives up, after three pages, and stares at his father’s watch. It ticks, tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock.

The man emerges, eventually, straightening his tie. Illya blinks up at him, and the man smiles and holds out a chocolate bar. Illya has not had chocolate since his father was taken away.

“Are you a good boy?” the man asks. Illya nods; he is a good boy. He goes to school and he goes to Young Pioneers’ meetings and he does not make trouble.

“That’s good.”

The man ruffles Illya’s hair. Illya stands, and goes back inside.

His mother is crying. She wears no clothes. Illya hides his chocolate among his books and gets into bed.  
He has school tomorrow.

*

It is September, and one of the other children calls his mother a whore.

Illya hits him, straight in the jaw, and they fight. Illya is smaller, because he is ten and not yet grown big and the other boy is twelve and tall for it. Illya ends up on the ground. He hurts. He wants to cry, but he does not.

“Your mother’s a whore,” says the boy. “She sleeps with men for money.”

Illya’s tongue is not quick, but his mind is. He asks, after a moment, “how come we don’t have more things, then?”  
People with money have things. Illya used to have many things; a radio, a bicycle, toys and books and games.

The boy laughs. “Because she’s ugly.”

That angers Illya. He staggers to his feet, and spits at the other boy’s feet. “Not as ugly as your mother,” he says, and he knows it is a stupid retort. The boy hits him, again, square in the face, and Illya falls.

*

It is September, and the adults are worrying.

Illya worries too; about the war, and about the men who visit his mother, and about the names the other children call his mother, and about school, and sometimes, when he is lying awake at night, his father.

He tries to enlist, to fight. He is ten years old, though, a child still, and he is laughed at. Illya does not try to enlist again.

*

It is September. Illya’s mother goes to work during the day and the men come by at night, or she goes out. Illya’s mother is tired, tired, tired. One day Illya’s mother tells Illya to stay in the room when one of the men come by. She tells him to be a good boy, and to do as he is told.

Illya is always a good boy.

*

It is October, and it is cold.

The adults are worried. Illya is worried too; about the Germans, who are coming, who are going to take over Moscow, maybe; about his shoes, which are still too small, and pinch at his toes; about the other children, who have found out that his father is a traitor.  
“I am not a traitor,” he tells them, “I would kill him, if I saw him committing treason.”  
He is not sure if that is true, but he knows he is not a traitor. He would rather die than be a traitor.

“I will be a soldier, soon,” he tells them, “as soon as I am big enough to pretend I’m eighteen.” Illya is the smallest boy in his class, almost, and so he is laughed at. It is not unkind laughter, not really. “And then I’ll kill all the Germans,” he adds.

*

It is October, and Yeva from upstairs teaches Illya to play chess.

Illya’s father used to play chess. He promised to teach Illya, when Illya was small enough that the pieces were huge in his hands.

Illya’s father had been a busy man. Illya’s father had never taught Illya to play chess. He had always told Illya “maybe tomorrow” or “maybe next week” or “in a few months, maybe we’ll see” and then he had become a traitor and been taken away.

Illya is good at chess. Illya is good at most things; he is bright and he is fast and he is strong. Illya beats Yeva at chess, once he has learnt to play properly. He beats Yeva’s older sister Selena, and Yeva’s cousin Mitya, who lives with them.

It feels good to be the best at something.

*

It is October, and the city is in uproar. People are building fortifications around the city.

Some of the smaller children cry. Illya is not one of them, though; he is ten years old, and ten is big and he has to be brave.

Illya’s mother’s men come less often. Illya’s mother works more shifts at the factory. Her hands are hard. She shouts at him, sometimes, when he is too loud or too quiet or puts his shoes in the wrong place or doesn’t put his mattress away properly. Illya’s mother used to have soft words. Sometimes they were spiky, sharp, but always they were soft in tone. Now she shouts and screams and cries. Illya does none of those things; he will be stoic. Be like a rock, his father sometimes said, like a stone.

Illya wishes his father was not a traitor.

He plays endless games of chess, when the children are shepherded inside, out of the way. He is good at it. None of the others want to play, after a while. He wins too often.

The other children are frightened. Illya pretends he is not. They all pretend they are not frightened. Hunger gnaws at all their stomachs. Some of the other children have soldiers for fathers. They worry twice over.

*

It is October.

The weather is bad. Illya races the other children up and down the stairs. He is fast, but he is small. Many of the other children are faster. 

They are racing when Yeva trips over a step on the way down and falls, falls, falls, bouncing and bouncing and bouncing. Illya is almost at the bottom already, and he has to slide to the side to get out of the way.

Yeva lies still at the foot of the stairs and does not move. Illya looks at her and sees her neck bent unnaturally to one side, and he runs to get an adult. Adults know what to do, always, mostly, sometimes.

Pytor Lagunov is about twenty. His leg is twisted so badly he has to walk with crutches, and so he is not a soldier. He is the first adult to answer Illya’s knocking.

“Yeva fell down the stairs,” Illya tells him. The other children are shouting. Pytor goes to look. He takes an eternity to get down the stairs, even though it is obvious he is hurrying. Yeva is still lying motionless. Pytor puts a hand to her wrist, and then to her neck.

“Dead,” he tells them.

Selena begins to cry. Selena is thirteen, and Yeva’s older sister. She is almost the oldest of all of them. Because Selena is crying, and she is the oldest, almost, some of the others cry too, even though they are not Yeva’s sisters or brothers.

Illya does not cry. He is strong. Strong children do not cry.

Yeva is dead.  
Yeva taught him to play chess, three, three and a half, four weeks ago.  
Yeva is dead.

*

It is November.

Yeva is buried.  
Yeva is dead.

There is a parade of soldiers. Illya does not see it.

It is cold. The heating does not work properly. Illya’s blankets are not warm enough, and he shivers at night.

The adults are worried. The children are worried. Everyone is worried. Illya swaps his shoes for a pair that belong to a boy the year below him at school, who has shoes far too big for him. They are too big for Illya as well, but they do not pinch him, like the shoes he gave the younger boy. He packs them with rags. His feet are almost warm.

Yeva’s sister Selena will not let Illya borrow the chess set. Illya finds pieces of wood and cardboard and paper and makes his own. Chess is as soothing as watching his father’s watch tick. It is comforting to the secret, shameful part of Illya that misses his father, loves him even though he is a traitor.

*

It is November. The Germans attack and attack and attack. The Germans are less than thirty kilometres away. The Germans are at the edge of Moscow.

*

It is December. The Germans are being driven back.

*

It is December. It is cold, cold, cold.

Illya whistles on his way to school. They are safer, now.

Illya looks forward to New Year’s Day. Previous New Year’s Days have brought presents, but Illya doubts this one will. He is saddened by this, but only a little.

Yeva’s parents have a new baby. They name it Esfir. It is small and adorable. Esfir will be as big as Illya, one day, and Illya cannot imagine how something so small can grow to be as big as he is.

Illya’s mother was going to have a baby, once. It died, though, and came out dead, and that’s not how babies are supposed to be. Babies are supposed to cry, like Esfir. Selena brought Esfir out to show them all, one day, and poked her to make her cry. Her face went pink like a sunset, and she screamed and screamed.

Illya thinks that he would like a sister or a brother. Most of the others have sisters or brothers or both. Illya had a brother, once, before he was born. Illya’s brother died. Illya has never asked how or when or where.

There was a picture of him, in Illya’s father’s study. Illya took it from the shattered frame, the day his father was taken away, and it lives inside one of his books now, with his other photographs. He has five. They are all he has of Before, really. 

*

It is January.


	2. 1942

It is January.

January means New Year’s Day, means celebrations, means decorations, means Grandfather Frost.   
Illya is too old for Grandfather Frost. His mother goes out in the morning and does not come back until after Illya has gone to bed.

llya eats bread for breakfast, bread for lunch, bread for dinner. He dreams of last New Year’s Day. Then he stops dreaming of it, because his father was there, then, and his father is a traitor.   
Illya wishes for many things that New Year’s Day. Most of all he wishes for warmth.   
The building is freezing. The heating still doesn’t work properly.

It is cold.

*

It is January.

Illya wakes up the morning after New Year’s Day, and finds a pair of shoes and a new coat and a woollen hat at the foot of his mattress.

Presents. His mother has given him presents.

Illya has two bars of chocolate stashed among his books. He puts one on his mother’s pillow and gets dressed and eats bread for breakfast and brushes his teeth. He puts on his new coat and his new shoes and his new hat.   
His shoes are too big; room for growing. They’re smaller than the pair he traded for, though. It’s good. He will no longer have to stuff his shoes with rags to make them fit.   
His coat is new, dark blue and heavy and too long at the sleeves. It will last a long time. He is glad.

It is cold outside. His mother sleeps soundly in her bed. He sits on the floor and stares up, out at the sky visible through the tiny window. The clouds are grey. They always are. He can hear people through the thin walls, hear baby Esfir wailing upstairs, can hear the world going about its day.

He is warm, though. It is good.

*

It is January.

Illya plays chess with himself. His mother is gone almost always.   
Illya goes to school, and does well. He plays with the other children. He goes to Young Pioneers meetings.

Every few nights Illya sits outside the apartment and listens to the sounds outside and plays chess with himself, or teaches himself Chinese out of a book he found in the library.   
One evening Illya’s mother tells him to stay, tells him to do as he is told and to be a good boy.

Illya has three bars of chocolate, now. It is a reward. It feels like a bribe.

Illya plays with the other children. They do not have stair races anymore. They have hallway races, though, and play hide-and-seek, and they kick Klim’s ball around inside until one of the adults gets mad and tells them to be quiet and they play lying-games, and see who can make up the best pretend story.   
Illya is not very good at lying-games. He can never think of what to say. 

*

It is February.

Illya goes to school. Illya goes to Young Pioneers meetings. Illya is a good boy, always, except when he gets into fights.

He is good at fighting. He kicks and punches and headbutts. He is small but he is fast and he is strong and sometimes before he gets into a fight his ears ring like an alarm and his vision blurs.

He is good at fighting. All the children know it.

*

It is February.

“We are moving,” says Illya’s mother.

Illya looks up at her. He is sitting on the floor, playing chess with himself.   
“We’re moving?” he asks. Upstairs baby Esfir screams.

“Yes,” says Illya’s mother.

*

It is February.

Their new apartment consists of two whole rooms, and one of the rooms has a sort of tiny kitchen. The bathroom at the end of the hallway is better than the one at their old apartment, too, and is shared with fewer people.

Illya’s mattress goes in the first room, the one with the door out into the hallway, and not in the tiny bedroom. Illya is glad of this. He no longer has to sit in the corridor when the men come calling for his mother.

There are fewer children here; perhaps no more than a dozen, although there are teenagers and babies too.

Illya’s new school is different but the same. Illya’s new Young Pioneers’ group is different but the same. These things are the same everywhere, he has come to realise, or nearly the same.

He is glad of it.

*

It is February.

Illya teaches himself to cook soup on the tiny stove. His mother is gone often, often, often, and it is better to eat hot soup than cold bread.

He burns his hands, sometimes. It hurts. He does not cry, though. He is brave. He is big, now. He is ten years old.

He gets better at cooking soup, though. Soup is good. It is hot, and warms him from the inside, and fills him up better than bread does.

*

It is March.

March is a good month. Spring, and getting less cold. Not warmer, because there is rarely anything warm about March, but less cold than February.

March is Illya’s mother’s birthday. Illya swaps four of his bars of chocolate for a pretty scarf, and the pretty scarf for a stuffed bird with bright feathers, and the stuffed bird with bright feathers for a shawl in blue and green and grey.   
His mother likes the shawl. She drapes it around her shoulders and laughs like she used to when Illya was small, when they had been happy and Illya’s father had not been a traitor.

“This is beautiful,” she tells Illya. Illya smiles up at her. His mother is beautiful too.

“I traded for it,” Illya says, “I got it from Dunya’s mother.”

His mother hugs him. His mother has not hugged him since the day Illya’s father was taken away.   
“Thank you,” she whispers.

She does not wear the shawl when she is trying to look pretty for the men who come to see her. She wears it, though, when she is listening to Illya read aloud from a book he has found in the library, all about stars.

*

It is March.

Illya goes to school. Illya goes to Young Pioneers meetings. Illya is a good boy, and does as he is told.

Another boy taunts him about his father. Illya does not know how the boy found out, only that he is suddenly being called a traitor’s son.

He remembers what happens next, vaguely, in the way that he remembers dreams. He is standing there, heart thumping in his ears, and then he is standing over the other boy and the other boy’s arm is crooked and the other children have drawn away from him.   
He gets into trouble. Illya does not like getting into trouble. Illya’s mother is angry.

“You are a disgrace,” she hisses to him as she leads him back to their apartment. Her fingers dig painfully into his shoulder, even through his thick coat. Illya bows his head.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, “I’m sorry.”   
He _is_ sorry.

“You’re going to turn out just like your father,” she tells him. Illya flinches. He does not want to turn out like his father. His father is a traitor, and Illya is a good boy and does everything a good Soviet boy should.

“I don’t want to be like my father.”  
She doesn’t seem to hear him. Illya wipes at the blood drying on his chin.

“I didn’t mean to, mother,” he says, and it is a hollow excuse, even though he didn’t mean to get into a fight, really, truly. It sounds like a lie.

Illya doesn’t like lies. Lies are bitter, lies are dishonest, lies are the first step on the road to treachery, to the gulag in Siberia where his father might already be dead.

Illya’s mother lectures him on these things every time she catches him in a lie.   
So he straightens his back and says, “he was saying terrible things. So I hit him,” and his mother looks at him with something close to fear in her eyes.

Illya pretends he doesn’t care.

*

It is April.

April means it’s getting warmer, less often below freezing, less often so cold that Illya’s hands go numb.   
Their new apartment has more reliable heating, at least.

Illya goes to school. Illya goes to Young Pioneers meetings. Illya gets into four fights during April. Illya does not remember one of them at all; two more are almost a dream.   
The fourth, though, the fourth he remembers well. The boy wanted his hat.

Illya does not want to give up his hat. Illya’s hat is _his_. The boy has a hat, anyway, it is just that his hat is red and Illya’s is green and the boy wants Illya’s.

Illya hits him in the nose. That is a good place to hit people if you want them to let you go. Then he hits the boy in the throat, because if you can’t breathe and you can’t see then you can’t chase someone.   
Then he runs, because this is a fight he will not win. It’s not cowardice, not really; it’s retreating.

The other children don’t see it that way. Illya pretends he doesn’t care, and hits anyone who says he’s weak.

Illya gets into four fights during April.

*

It is May.

May is warmer. Illya likes May. May is the time for anticipation.

Illya gets into many fights in May. Stupid, childish fights, mostly, because he retreated once and now the others say he is a coward.   
Illya no longer retreats. He fights, and he fights, and he fights. He is the best at fighting.

May is warmer than April, and so Illya sits outside to read books in other languages. He is good at learning things. He has always been good at learning things.

He plays with the other children, the ones who will have him. He plays hide-and-seek, and they jump the small stream that runs through the tiny park and pretend they’re soldiers.

Illya will be a soldier, one day. He knows it. His mother wants great things from him – she tells him, when she is not shouting, when she is not crying, when she is not gone. She wants him to be a scientist, or a doctor maybe, or in the government.   
Illya will be a soldier. He will fight for his country, and he will die for it, and he will make up for his father’s disgrace.

If he wasn’t going to become a soldier, though – he would want to become a rocket maker.   
They will put people in space one day, maybe, someday, in a year or ten years or a hundred, Illya isn’t sure, but one day they will, and Illya wants to build the things that will get them there.   
They're like missiles, almost, but for people. Like aeroplanes but up, up, up instead of across the world.

The stars are very far off. He thinks that maybe he would like to visit them. 

*

It is May.

Illya breaks his arm in May. He doesn’t realise that is the reason his arm hurts for three days.

It’s a fight. It is always a fight. He doesn’t want to tell his mother, but he has to. The books he reads – books he only half understands, full of words he doesn’t quite know – say that his arm could heal crooked and weak if it is not fixed.   
He tells his mother. His mother is angry.

She takes him to get his arm fixed, though. 

*

It is June.

June means it is almost Illya’s birthday. June means summer, means playing in the stream with the other children, means Illya is nearly eleven.

Illya comes home, wet with stream-water and with sticks and leaves in his hair, to an empty apartment.

He prefers it empty, in the secret part of his heart where his love for his father lives, where the resentment for his mother’s angry words and the anger at the men who come to visit her lives, where pain and fear live.

June means many things. June is Illya’s father’s birthday. He pretends he doesn’t remember, pretends he doesn’t hear his mother crying in the other room, pretends he doesn’t want to cry himself.   
He won’t, though. His father is a traitor, and he will not cry for a traitor.

*

It is June, and it rains. Illya stares out the window, face pressed to the glass. The rain runs down the panes, and he watches, them, making silent bets with himself about which drop will reach the bottom first.

He is not allowed outside when it rains, except to go to school. It is not a school day. The only reason he is allowed out of the apartment is to go down the hallway to the bathroom.   
He watches the rain. It rains and rains and rains.   
He wants to go outside. He is not allowed.

When he tires of staring at the rain he plays chess with himself. He has to keep re-making pieces, because he keeps absent-mindedly chewing on them when he’s thinking, and cardboard doesn’t stand up to chewing very well.   
He is getting good at chess, he thinks. He borrows books on chess, because novels for children are too few and novels for adults are too boring, so he has to find something else to read. He learns new tactics.

It is nearly lunchtime. There is soup, left-over from yesterday. Illya made it, because his mother got home from work and then went out again, to wherever it is she goes.   
Illya’s mother is asleep in her room, now. Illya isn’t to disturb her unless something’s on fire, that’s what she told him.

Illya eats soup and bread for lunch, the same as breakfast, the same as dinner, and he goes to the bathroom and he washes his bowl and spoon, and then he goes back to the apartment.

He reads a book in Chinese. Illya is getting okay at reading it, although he makes a list of characters to look up in one of the dictionaries.   
He cannot speak the language. His tongue twists around the sounds. He sticks to Russian, and the Ukrainian his mother knows, the Ukrainian of his infancy, the language his mother no longer uses.

Illya puts down the book, after a while, and doodles planets and stars and ideas for rockets in his notebook.   
His rockets look a lot like aeroplanes, trailing fire.

His father’s watch says it’s three o’clock when his mother emerges from her room. She looks less tired than usual, and she bends to rub the top of Illya’s head.

“You’re a good boy, Illya.”

Illya tips his head back to look at her.   
“I didn’t go out to play,” he tells her, because it’s important to him that she knows he didn’t do the wrong thing.

She smiles at him.

“You’re a good boy,” she repeats. Illya hates those words, hates being called a good boy, but he nods anyway.

*

It is July. 

July means Illya’s birthday. Illya waits, counts off the days in his head (one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten-eleven-twelve-thirteen-fourteen-fifteen-sixteen-seventeen-eighteen-nineteen-twenty-twenty-one-twenty-two-twenty-three-twenty-four, _twenty-five_ ) and he wakes to find his mother absent.   
He goes out to play, and when he comes back in for dinner his mother is sitting at the table. 

She looks very tired. There are several brown-paper packages in front of her. 

“Happy birthday,” she tells him. 

Illya opens the packages. Trousers and a jumper and a good shirt. A notebook and a handful of pencils. 

A chess set.

Illya stares at it. 

“Thank you, mama,” he tells her. He wants to hug her, but he isn’t sure if she will allow it. 

The chess set is made of wood, pale pieces and dark pieces. It is his. It is his chess set. 

It is the best thing he has ever owned, he thinks, as he sets the pieces out. His mother watches him. She is smiling, slightly, and Illya thinks he has not seen her so happy for nearly a year.   
“Would you like to play?” he asks, and his mother’s face falls, just a little. 

“I would. I don’t know how.”

Illya smiles, and his face hurts with it, and he says, “I can teach you!” and picks up a pawn. 

“These ones go forward only, except when they’re taking another piece. Never backwards.”

His mother’s mouth curves up at the corner again. It is a good day.

*

It is August. 

Illya gets into nine proper fights in August. 

They took his father away in the August. He was ten, then. One of the men held Illya's wrists in a grip so tight it bruised and told Illya's father not to run, or they'd kill his wife and son.  
He is eleven, now, and that is a long way from ten. 

Illya plays endless games of chess, endless games of ball with the other child, endless games of soldiers. August passes quickly.

Illya thinks of his father. Illya wishes his father was a soldier, like so many other fathers.   
His father is not a soldier.

*

It is September.

The adults are worrying about the war. The adults are always worrying about the war. The war has gone on a long, long time.

Illya likes September. September is autumn. Illya likes autumn.

*

It is November. November is cold.

The adults worry. Illya plays endless games of chess and goes to school for endless hours. It is cold.

He wears his coat. It is still too long in the sleeve.

November drags on, endless, endless, and all too quickly over.

*

It is December.

Illya looks forward to New Year’s Day. Illya looks forward to many things. Illya is glad of many things, too; he makes a list of things he has – food, and a home, and a mother, and safety, and schooling, and a chess set, and shoes, and a coat, and heating that works, and water.

There are many things Illya has.

*

It is December.   
“I’m going to have a baby,” Illya’s mother tells Illya. Illya is sitting on his mattress, trying to decipher a book of sheet music. It is piano music. There is a piano downstairs, discordant and out of tune, but he wants to see if he can play it. He does not know how to play piano. He is trying to learn.

“Will it die?” Illya asks. Babies die, sometimes. The baby that came after Illya died, before it was even born.

Illya’s mother’s mouth turns down at the corners.   
“Don’t say such things, Illya.”

Illya stares down at the notes in front of him. The national anthem.

“When will it come?” he asks. He is thinking about all the things that babies need – clothing, and blankets, and somewhere to sleep.

Illya’s mother’s face is brilliant and anguished all at once.   
“May.”

May is a long time away, and not much time at all. Half a year.   
Illya taps at his father’s watch, strapped around his wrist. It is too big for him. It almost slipped off, once. He keeps it tied on with string. 

He wonders where the baby will sleep. Who will look after it when his mother is at work and Illya is at school. If it will be a brother or a sister. 

A thought occurs to him. You need a man and a woman to make a baby, and his mother is a single person. Someone else has been making a baby with her.   
The actual way in which babies are created is unclear to Illya. He asks, “how did you get it?”

His mother shuts her eyes. 

“Go away, Illya.”

Illya puts on his shoes and coat and goes, outside to play with the other children.

*

It is January.


	3. 1943

It is January.

He is given clothes for New Year’s Day, and a new notebook. He writes his name in it, neat cursive, and is pleased with the result.

Illya’s mother cries at night, when she thinks he is not listening. She has not cried at night when she thinks he is not listening for months and months.   
The walls are thin here. Illya lies awake at night, counting seconds on his father’s watch, and listens to his mother sob, and wishes his father had died instead of becoming a traitor.

Illya thinks about the baby. Are they born sad, if their mothers are sad while they are growing inside them? Or are they unaffected. People are mammals, Illya thinks. They do not hatch from eggs. They brew inside their mothers. Like beer, except a tiny human comes out instead of alcohol.

Illya thinks about his father, when his mother cries, about his father, far away in Siberia and maybe dead. People don’t always come back from Siberia.

*

It is January.

Illya goes to school. He is good at school, good at the lessons. Illya goes to Young Pioneers meetings. He is good at many things.

His mother is angry with him, for the last weeks of January. Illya does not know why; he has been a good boy, when she asks him to be good, and he has kept out of the way, and he has been quiet, and he has not gotten into fights, or at least any that his mother knows of.

His mother shouts when she is angry, shouts and screams and cries and says things that make Illya’s ears ring and his fingers go bloody where he is digging his nails into his palms or his knees.

*

It is January.

Illya breaks another boy’s collarbone, the day before February, and his mother is more angry than he has ever seen her.   
He is in trouble. He knows this.

She takes away his chess set.

He has done the wrong thing.

He wants his chess set.

Illya sits and stares at his father’s watch. It ticks, tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock, regular as clockwork because it _is_ clockwork.   
He breathes in time, tick-tock in, tick-tock out, tick-tock in, and counts his chocolate bars, hidden under his mattress now.   
He has five. He opens one, peeling back the paper, and snaps off a corner.

It tastes good. Illya rarely eats his chocolate; he saves it and trades it for other things – gloves, socks, bread, his mother’s shawl, pencils.

He puts the rest away. His mother is crying in her room again. Soon she will get up and prepare for visitors. It is Sunday. Soon a man will arrive, one of a dozen, or even two dozen, and he will wear a suit and not take off his hat and he will go into Illya’s mother’s room and Illya will sit with his back against the wall and try to decipher the book he is reading, which has far too many words Illya doesn’t know, and he will ignore the noises.

Hopefully that is what will happen, anyway. That is standard, and Illya is not fond of any of the possible deviations.

He sits, and watches seconds tick by, tick-tock-tick-tock, and waits for the knock at the door.

*

It is February.

February is winter still, and Illya leaves mugs of water outside and sees how long they take to freeze. He records the results in his notebook, already full of lists of things – things he is thankful for, people he knows, childish experiments and childish ideas – and he does not let his mother find out.

His mother does not approve of experiments. He isn’t allowed to light things on fire, or to observe the neighbours to see whether an increased number of children improves or destroys the parents’ relationship, or throw things into the stream to see whether the ice is consistently thicker in the centre.

His mother disapproves of many things; of Illya’s attempts at experimentation, of his attempts to learn to play the piano, of his borrowing books, even though he always returns them.

She disapproves especially of Illya’s fighting.

*

It is March. Spring, and getting less cold, and Illya’s mother is waiting for him when he gets home from school.

She says, “we’re moving.”

Illya looks at the bags on the floor, half packed and untidy, and he puts down his books, wrapped in their belt, and begins refolding his clothing.

His books are stacked by his mattress. He puts them in. He takes his stash of chocolate (six and a half bars) and packs it in neatly.

Everything Illya owns is not a lot of things, even with all he has accumulated over the past year. He used to own more. He used to have an entire room full of things.

His stuffed bear goes in the bottom, under his blankets, hidden from his mother. She told him to give it to one of the younger children in the building, that he was eleven and did not need it.

Illya does not want to give it to one of the younger children.

*

It is March, and their new apartment is bigger and has a sink, although no toilet, no shower or bath.

Illya has to haul all their things up the stairs. His mother’s stomach has become huge. It is a month and a half until the baby is supposed to emerge.

Do they dig their way out, with their tiny baby teeth? Esfir had not had any teeth. Maybe she was an outlier. Maybe that’s not how babies emerge.

Illya does not know. His mother will not answer when he asks, and all the old women – who should know how babies are produced, since most of them are grandmothers – laugh at him when he tells them he wants to know how his sibling will – hatch? Is that the right word? Emerge. Emerge is better.

Illya has a bed, now, and he drags the mattress off it and into the other room because his mother has lately taken to locking herself into the bedroom at their old apartment and Illya is worried the habit will follow them.

He unpacks his bag. His books go in a pile, and his toys, all two of them, go on top, and his chess set goes beside them, and his stuffed bear goes under his blankets, and his chocolate goes under the mattress.

Illya sits on his new bed and sets up his chess and hums to himself as his mother weeps quietly in the other room. It might be good, here.

*

It is March.

Illya gives his mother chocolate for her birthday, four bars of it, and his mother takes it and smiles.

Her eyes are sad.

*

It is April.

Illya had decided that all schools and all Young Pioneers groups are the same and that all groups of children are the same.

Illya talks to the other children in the apartment building. He tells them his father is dead, and it might be true. It is better than saying his father is a traitor and was sent to a gulag.

Illya’s mother has a new job. It involves typewriters. She seems happier than she used to be, even if she cries.

The men have stopped visiting as often. Illya is glad. His mother plays chess with him. She is clumsy with her strategy, but she improves quickly.

April is a good month. Almost warm. Illya plays outside with the other children. Illya’s mother’s stomach gets even bigger, round like an egg.

Illya plays hide-and-seek with the other children. He plays at soldiers with them. He plays chess, although the other children soon tire of it.

*

It is April. Illya likes April.

It is warm enough to stop wearing a coat. He wears his jumper and his hat, green as grass, and he goes to play outside, in the streets with the other children. One of them has a ball. They play football. They always play football.   
Illya plays chess with a girl called Asya, who lives downstairs.

“My name is Anastasiya,” she informs him, “but no-one calls me that.”

Illya nods.

“I am Illya,” he tells her. She grins. He smiles back.

*

It is April. Illya has a friend. He has not had a friend since Yeva, who is dead and fell down the stairs.

They are Illya and Asya, Asya and Illya, and it is good.

“My mama’s dead,” Asya says. Illya frowns.

“But your father has a wife.”

Asya smiles at him.

“That is his new wife. My mother died a long time ago. Forever. Nine years, I think.”

Illya nods. That’s a long time. Almost as long as Illya has been alive.

Some of the other boys make fun of Illya, because he is friends with a girl. Illya tells them she plays chess with him, and that if they played chess they could be friends with Asya too.

They play football. Illya is good at football, fast, good at kicking.

“I’m going to be a soldier,” he tells the other boys, “when I’m big enough.”

They nod in agreement. All the boys are going to be soldiers, when they’re big enough.

Illya kicks the ball from foot to foot, and then bounces it off his knee. It is a trick. The other children at his last apartment building taught it to him.

When Illya was younger he wanted to build rocket ships, to go to the stars. Now he is bigger, and he wants to be a soldier.

He does not remember how he could have considered anything else.

*

It is May, and Illya’s mother is having a baby.

It takes a long time for the baby to come. Illya fetches water and carries things and at the end of the noise and blood and crying there is a baby, tiny and perfect and looking like a red potato.

“Hello,” Illya says, and he is not sure if the baby is a girl or a boy. He holds it, careful, careful, and when it begins to cry he rocks it, like girls do with their dolls, like Esfir and Yeva and Selena’s mother rocked Esfir.

It is small and red and screaming and Illya puts it in the crib. It is so very small.

*

It is May, and Illya’s mother says “she is called Olena.”

The baby is small and sweet and called Olena Melnyk. Melnyk was Illya’s mother’s name, before she married Illya’s father. It is her name now.

It is not Illya’s name. Illya’s name is Kuryakin.

No men come to visit for the whole of May.

*

It is June.

Baby Olena grows bigger. She grows fast, fast, fast, faster than Illya.

She cries and cries and cries, too. Illya’s mother is the happiest Illya has ever seen her, even when Illya’s father was not a traitor, even when they lived in a big house and Illya was Illyushka and his mother and father used to dance to music on the radio.

“Mama,” Illya asks, one morning before school when he is sitting on his mattress, tying his shoes, “where do babies come from?”

Illya’s mother does not answer, but her mouth goes tight at the corners.

“Is Olena a good baby?” he asks, trying to distract her. Illya’s mother smiles.

“No. She isn’t. You were a good baby. So was –”

Her voice catches. She recovers quickly, though.

“So was your brother.”

Illya nods, and gets to his feet.

“See you tonight,” he says, on his way out the door. His mother smiles. His mother is happy.

*

It is June.

The men come visiting again. It is an entire month since Olena was born. 

Illya is a good boy. He goes to school and he goes to Young Pioneers meetings and he tries not to get into fights and he looks after his sister, who is so, so small. 

Illya’s mother says, “be a good boy. Do as you’re told.”

Illya is a good boy. He does as he is told. 

Illya’s mother tells him, afterwards, “they could take you away, if we do not do as they say.”

Illya nods. 

Illya’s mother says, “you are to learn the piano.”

Illya blinks at her. 

“I am?”

Illya’s mother nods. 

“Doing as we must has advantages, Illya. This is a reward for your compliance.”

Illya does not like the word. It speaks of fear, and of pain, and of something unwanted. He stashes his new chocolate bars under his mattress and pretends that he does not mind.

*

It is June, and Illya tells Olena stories while their mother and the men are in the other room. 

“When I was as small as you,” Illya says, “we lived in a big house, as big as four of this apartment, maybe.”

He is hazy on the size of their old house. It was a long, long time ago now. A year. Almost two years. Illya was ten, then, and now he is nearly, almost twelve. He likes tell Olena about Before. 

“I had a mama, and a papa, and a dead brother. You’ve got a mama and you’ve got me, so that’s alright. I’m bigger than our brother was. He was dead, always.”

Olena holds onto his finger. Her hands are so small, small, small, small. 

“This was my papa’s watch. I don’t think he’s your papa.”

Illya considers this for a moment. 

“Well. Maybe he is. No one will tell me how you make a baby, and so I don’t know.”

Another pause. 

“I shall tell you a fairy tale. Fairy tale are scary, sometimes, but they mostly end well.”

It is June. June is a good month, that year.

*

It is July. 

Illya goes to school and he goes to Young Pioneers meetings and he goes to piano lessons and he goes out to play with the other children and he goes home to sit against the wall with Olena in his lap and tell her stories. 

Illya is almost twelve. He counts off the days, _fifteen-sixteen-seventeen-eighteen-nineteen-twenty-twenty-one-twenty-two-twenty-three-twenty-four_ -twenty-fve. 

Illya is given sheet-music for his birthday, and new clothes, and a torch. It is a good torch. 

It is a good day. They have stew for dinner, and it has potatoes in it, and Olena does not scream while they are eating and no men come to visit. 

It is July, and Illya is twelve years old.

*

It is August, and Illya is sick. 

He doesn’t mean to get sick, but he is, and he is burning up and then he is so cold he is sure he will get frostbite and his father is standing over him, calling him Illyushka, and Illya cries and cries. 

His mother leans over him, but she has to go to work, so an old lady gives him water and knits by Illya’s ear and the needles are unbearably loud, like guns firing, bang-bang-bang, and he wants to go home. 

Illya is not sure where home is, anymore.

*

It is August, and Illya gets better. 

His legs feel funny, like they don’t quite belong to him. 

He sits and reads or plays chess with himself. He holds Olena in his lap and she squirms, big blue eyes blinking up at him. 

“I’m not mama,” Illya tells her one day. Their mother is at work. Olena is crying fretfully. “But I’m Illya. That’s all I can be.”

He rocks her, gently, like he’s supposed to. 

“It will be alright.”

Things are always alright, mostly, eventually.

*

It is August

Illya goes back to his Young Pioneers meetings. Illya goes back to his piano lessons. Illya plays football with the other children, even though he has to stop sometimes, to get his breath back. 

Illya has grown two whole inches in the past year. He is proud of this. 

Illya plays chess with Asya, and shows off Olena. 

“She’s my sister,” Illya says, proudly. Asya stares at her. 

“She’s so _small_.”

Asya is the youngest in her family. She has never had a baby sibling before. 

“Yes,” Illya says, and he shows Asya how to get Olena to hold onto her fingers. 

Asya is thirteen, now, older than Illya. Illya takes Olena out of her crib and puts her in his lap and gets out the chessboard. 

He beats Asya three times, and Asya beats him once, which is usual. Asya smiles at him, and he shares his chocolate with her, sitting on his mattress, listening to the sounds of the street outside and the neighbours in the other apartments. Asya smiles at him. 

It is a good day.

*

It is September. 

Illya gets into nine fights in September. His mother is not pleased. 

Three of them are like dreams. He hates that, hates that he cannot remember what he did. 

He goes to school. He goes to Young Pioneers meetings. He goes to his piano lessons. He plays with the other children. 

Olena cries and cries and cries. Illya doesn’t know why. He paces the room, rocking her, rocking her, for hours, or he puts his hand over his mouth when his mother has men in the other room. 

He sings to her, sometimes, lullabies that he has learnt from Asya, or from the old women in the other apartments, or even, lately, from his mother. 

Illya’s mother did not sing lullabies to him. Illya’s mother was always sad, when Illya was small. There was no singing. 

“Shh,” he tells Olena, because it is very late and he is very tired and Olena is wailing and his mother is out, “shhh. It’s all right.”

He rocks her, back and forth, and she cries even louder. 

Eventually he puts her in her crib and curls up on his mattress with his blankets over his head and pretends he can’t hear her. He falls asleep like that, and when he wakes up his mother is leaning over Olena, singing to her. 

Illya drags his blankets down from his face and goes back to sleep.

*

It is October. Colder, but not yet the cold that seeps into Illya’s bones during the winter.

His shoes are too small. He puts them away and finds the ones he traded for, back at their first apartment, the year Yeva died.   
They almost fit him, now. 

Olena can sit up. Illya shows her how to play chess. He doesn’t think she understands. She’s a baby, still.  
He pats her hair. It is soft beneath his fingers. She tries to eat a knight, and he takes it from her in case she swallows it. 

Illya gets into only one fight during October. He knocks out the child’s tooth, but the other child almost breaks Illya’s nose. 

Illya’s mother never finds out about it.

*

It is October. 

Illya’s mother bleeds from the nose, sometimes, and once Illya wakes up and she’s bent over the sink, red dripping over the stained white of it, and he wonders if she’s going to die.

October is a time of celebration.   
Illya’s mother does not celebrate. She cries at night. She sings to Olena, sad, sad songs. She cries and cries and cries. 

Illya does everything he is supposed to, and it still isn’t enough.

*

It is November. It is December.

It is cold, and cold, and cold. Illya is a good boy.

He tries to be a good boy. He does everything he is told. He goes to school, to Young Pioneers meetings, to his lessons. He looks after Olena.

He suspects, somewhere deep down, where he loves his father still, that it will not be enough. That it will never be enough.

*

It is January.


	4. 1944

It is January. 

New Year’s Day brings Illya a new coat, and a pair of mittens knitted of brown wool and a football of his own. 

He shows it off to the other children. It is a good ball. 

The other children race up and down the stairs. They try to get Illya to play, and he shakes his head. 

They ask him why, sometimes, and Illya thinks if Yeva bouncing past him, down, down, down, and thinks of her sprawled at the foot of the stairs, never to move again, and he doesn’t answer.   
One of the older boys calls him a coward. Illya hits him, square in the nose, and then regrets it. 

He doesn’t want to get into fights. It makes his fist throb and his stomach squeeze tight because fighting is _wrong_. 

January is cold. Illya is glad of his new coat.

*

It is February. 

Olena learns to crawl. She is fast. Illya takes to tying her ankle to the foot of her crib with a length of string, so she doesn’t get away. 

Illya’s mother is out almost all the time. Illya washes Olena in the sink and puts her to bed in the crib and changes her and feeds her whatever there is for her to eat, soup, mostly, soup Illya makes by boiling cabbage and other vegetables in a pot until it’s soft enough for Olena’s tiny baby teeth to chew. 

Asya has taken to going around with the other girls, not Illya. She plays chess with him, sometimes, but she tells him to leave the door open. 

Illya leaves the door open.

*

It is February, and one of the other boys calls Illya a girl for being friends with Asya, for looking after Olena, and Illya’s ears ring and his vision is red as nosebleed-blood and he blinks and the other boy is lying on the ground, groaning, not quite conscious. 

Illya stands there for a moment. The other boys have drawn back a little. 

Then he pushes past them. He is not tall, but he is going to be, and he has a way of making himself bigger when he wants to be. 

“Don’t call me that,” he tells the boy, looking back over his shoulder, and he goes down the stairs, one-two-three flights, and he slams the door. 

Olena is lying on the floor by her crib, sucking on her fist. She starts to cry when he slams the door. 

“Sorry,” he tells her, scooping her up and untying the string around her ankle. He sits on his mattress and rocks back and forth, staring at his father’s watch. It ticks and it tocks and it tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tocks and he pretends he’s only comforting Olena. 

His mother doesn’t find out about the fight, even though Nil’s nose never does heal straight.

*

It is March. 

March means his mother’s birthday. March means Illya swaps chocolate for a string of red-glass beads and gives them to his mother. 

His mother smiles at him. Olena is in her lap, tugging at his mother’s hair. 

“Can I go play?” he asks, after they have finished their lunch. It is one of the rare days when his mother doesn’t have work and doesn’t have somewhere to go. Illya didn’t even have to cook; his mother had made lunch instead. 

“Yes, Illya,” his mother says. Illya gets up and washes his bowl and spoon in the sink and goes to play with the other children.   
They’re wary of him, now, after the fight in February when he broke Nil’s nose, but they let him play because he is good at their games. 

He plays chess alone.

*

It is April. 

April is a good month, Spring, warmer, better. 

Illya learns to knit from one of the old women upstairs. He makes his mother a scarf. He makes Olena a hat, because she has grown out of her old one. She claps her hands when she sees it, smiling wide.

*

It is April. Illya likes April. His mother goes out more often than the men come to the apartment. Illya’s chocolate supply dwindles. 

A new family moves in, two floors down. One of the children is called Ivan. He is twelve, like Illya. 

Illya teaches him to play chess. Ivan is not as good as Illya – none of the other children are as good as Illya – but he learns quickly, even if he tails behind. 

Ivan is taller than Illya, and he wears round spectacles. He doesn’t go to Young Pioneers meetings. He wears a wooden cross around his neck. 

That’s religion. Illya’s mother doesn’t approve of religion. Religion is not something you are supposed to have.   
Illya wonders if it’s catching, and plays chess with Ivan anyway. If he catches religion he will get better, like when he got sick?

*

It is April. 

Illya asks questions – where do babies come from (how do you get one, really, because what if you can give someone a baby by accident?) and is religion catching, and why is his mother sick. 

He does not get answers.

*

It is May. 

May means Olena is a whole year old. 

She’s almost, almost walking. Illya worries about her. What is she falls down the stairs, down, down, down, and dies, like Yeva, and Yeva was Illya’s age, older, even. 

May means it gets warm enough to put away his coat and to play football again. Illya teaches Ivan his trick of bouncing the ball from foot to knee to foot again, and from foot to foot. 

Illya gets into seven fights in May, mostly at school. He thinks he breaks a finger, because it swells and hurts for weeks, out of May and into June, and it hurts to write.   
He writes with his left hand. It’s awkward. His writing is clumsy, and he gets into trouble for it. 

His hand is sore, though. He doesn’t dare tell his mother. She is sad, and tired, and she does not have time for his worries at the moment, or the time to worry about him.

*

It is May. Ivan’s parents yell a lot, at each other, at their elder children. Ivan is somewhere in the middle, maybe the fourth. 

Illya’s mother is rarely home, so Illya says, “you can come up to my place, if you want, if you don’t mind Olena.”

Ivan grins at him. His front teeth are crooked, but his smile is like someone turning on the sun. 

“Yeah,” he says, “that’d be good.”

They sit up in Illya’s apartment a lot, when they’re not playing with the other children. They play chess. Ivan always loses, but he doesn’t seem to care. 

“Nina’s pretty,” Ivan tells him. Nina is a girl from school, in their class. Illya hums, and moves a knight. He knows that Nina is pretty. He just doesn’t know why it matters. 

“I’m going to ask her out.”

Illya blinks at him. 

“Why?”

Ivan looks at him. It is a funny look. 

“Because she’s pretty, and she’s nice.”

Illya runs his fingers across the face of his father’s watch, and glances toward Olena, who is trying to climb the beds in the other room. 

“Oh.”

Ivan moves a pawn. Illya looks at the board, and bites his thumb. If he takes the pawn then the piece will be take by Ivan’s rook. If he doesn’t take the pawn then it will take his knight. 

He moves his knight.

*

It is May. 

Olena takes two steps all on her own. Illya spends three days making a harness out of string and scraps of fabric, so he can tie Olena to his wrist, so she won’t fall down the stairs. 

When he thinks about it he’s terrified of the stairs; one slip and he’s at the bottom with a broken neck, eyes staring vacantly at the crowd around him. 

Olena isn’t going to fall down the stairs, though. Olena is safe in her harness. 

The other children laugh at him. One of the boys calls Illya ‘mother Illya’ and Illya hits him square in the throat and tells him that people _die_ falling down the stairs.   
He doesn’t tell them about Yeva, though, about Yeva lying still and silent and _wrong_ at the foot of the stairs, so they just laugh at him.

*

It is June. 

June is summer. 

Ivan works up the courage to ask Nina out, but she says no. Illya pats Ivan’s shoulder and tells her that there are other girls. It doesn’t seem to comfort him very much.

Illya goes to school, goes to Young Pioneers meetings, goes to his piano lessons. 

One evening Ivan comes up to Illya’s apartment and Illya stops him at the door. He has Olena on one hip. 

“You can’t come in tonight.”

Ivan frowns at him. 

“Why?”

Illya shrugs.

“My mother has a man in her room. They make noises.”

Ivan makes a face. 

“Yuck. My parents do that. When they’re not yelling, anyway.”

Illya shifts Olena into a more comfortable position. 

“We could play chess out here,” he suggests, and Ivan nods. Illya goes inside to get his chess set and returns to find Ivan sitting by the door, legs stretched out in front of him. 

They play, for a while. Ivan’s sister comes to fetch him eventually, and tells him how he could beat Illya. It doesn’t work, but it almost does, and Illya files the strategy away to think about later. 

“Goodnight,” he tells Ivan. He will see his friend in the morning; they walk to school together, with some of the other children from their apartment. 

“Goodnight,” says Ivan.

*

It is June. 

Illya plays football. Illya plays piano. 

“It’s my birthday,” Ivan tells him. They are sitting on the windowsill, staring out at the rain. 

“Oh,” says Illya, “happy birthday.”

He slides off the windowsill and takes two bars of chocolate from under his mattress and gives them to Ivan. 

“Whoa,” says Ivan. “How’d you get these?”

Illya watches drops of water run down the window. He picks one at random, and it wins the race to the bottom of the glass. 

“The men give them to me. If I’m good.”

Ivan frowns. 

“If you’re good at what?”

Illya shrugs. Olena is babbling at the door. 

“Anything they want me to do.”

Ivan goes back to staring at the rain. 

“Happy birthday,” Illya tells him again. Ivan smiles. 

“Thanks.”

*

It is July. 

Illya’s birthday is soon, but Illya does not count down the days this year. 

Instead he goes to school and goes to Young Pioneers meetings and plays with the other children and tries to teach Olena to talk and plays chess with Ivan. 

“Lya,” says Olena, one morning, when she’s in her crib and can’t get out. Illya looks at her. 

“What?” he asks, even though he knows she doesn’t understand, yet. 

“Lya,” Olena repeats, and bangs at the side of the crib. 

He puts her down on the floor while he washes his face and combs his hair. She is still so small. 

“Lya,” she says, tugging at his leg. 

“What?” he asks. She points at the bread on the shelf. 

“Lya,” she says, plaintively. Illya stares at her. She is saying the same thing. It is not her usual babbling.

He points at himself. 

“Illya?”

Olena says, “Lya,” and hits him in the knee. 

Illya smiles.

*

It is July. 

One of the girls at school has a knife. 

Illya trades her for it, and sits in his room and sharpens it one afternoon when it rains too hard to play outside. When he finishes sharpening it the blade is keen enough to cut a hair.   
Ivan doesn’t believe him. Illya demonstrates. 

“That’s a good knife,” Ivan tells him. Ivan should know; his father has many knives. 

They play chess. The knife is both comforting and frightening in Illya’s pocket. 

Ivan almost wins.

*

It is July, and it is Illya’s birthday. 

Illya gets clothes, and he gets toy soldiers carved of wood. He is pleased with these. 

It is July. When it rains he lies on the floor of his apartment and plays toy soldiers with Ivan, who has a set of his own, battered tin handed down from his older brother, who’s an adult now and off with the proper army. 

“I’m thirteen,” Illya tells Ivan, because it seems important to him. Ivan frowns. 

“You didn’t tell me.”

Illya shrugs. 

“I forgot.”

Ivan sighs. 

“Happy birthday.”

Illya nods, and moves one of his soldiers. It’s sort of like playing chess, except there are no rules and they can get into pleasant arguments about whether or not their troops are killed. These arguments generally lead to good-natured scuffling, until one of them wins and the loser is forced to admit that they were wrong, and that the troops are either dead or alive, according to their original position on the matter. 

Sometimes Olena tries to eat their soldiers, which is a natural disaster. They have both agreed on that. It is a blizzard, or a flood, or a fire. 

Illya likes July.

*

It is August. 

Illya’s mother cries. 

Illya’s mother often cries, in August. She no longer tries to hide it from him, though. She sits at the kitchen table and weeps. 

“Maaa,” says Olena, trying to climb the table, “Maaaaa!”

Illya picks her up, settling her on his hip. Her tiny hands pull at his jumper and his hair. 

“Mama?” he asks, tentative. His mother doesn’t look up. 

Illya fetches Olena’s harness and his chess set and heads towards the door. His mother’s voice stops him. 

“Be back before dinner, Illya.”

Her words are wet. She is crying still. 

“Yes, mama,” Illya says, and then, because Illya’s mother rarely tells Illya to come home at a set time – Illya thinks, sometimes, that she would not notice if he did not come home until the morning – he asks, “why, mama?”

Illya’s mother says, “we’re going out.”

Illya does not like the sound of that.

*

It is August. 

In August Illya gets into three fights, but all of them are the kind that make his vision go hazy and all his blood pulse in his ears. 

Ivan tells him he should not get into fights so easily. Illya tells Ivan that he is trying not to. 

In August Ivan falls in love with a girl in their class. She has hair like wheat, Ivan says, and she is the smartest girl he’s ever met. Illya thinks, privately, that she isn’t even the smartest girl in their class, just the most outspoken about it, but he doesn’t tell Ivan that. 

He helps Ivan plan things to say to her, instead. He says none of them. Ivan is not good at talking to girls he is interested in. He is good at talking to girls he _isn’t_ interested in. Illya wonders why. 

He plays football with the other children. Ivan is better in the goal, where his long arms and excellent sense of timing are not hindered by his inability to keep his glasses on his face when he’s running. Illya is good at football. He likes to play. 

Olena almost falls down the stairs in August. Illya jerks her back by her harness, and Olena wails in possible pain and certain surprise, and Illya runs to pick her up. He is glad of the harness. Olena will not die on his watch.

*

It is September. 

Illya’s mother becomes thin and wan. Illya is afraid. She might die, he thinks, staring up at the ceiling and feeling Olena breathing beside him.  
She has outgrown her crib, now. 

Illya is afraid. It is only his mother’s efforts that keep food on the table and a roof over their heads and Illya is not yet old enough to live alone. 

His mother has always been present, even when she was absent, present in her work clothes over the back of the chair, present in the brush sitting by the sink. 

Illya is afraid. Illya is afraid of many things, really. Of becoming a traitor, like his father, of the stairs, of dying, swift and sudden and without warning or long and drawn out. 

He thinks his mother is dying. The thought is the only thing that does not frighten him.

*

It is September.   
Illya goes to school. Illya goes to Young Pioneers meetings. Illya goes to piano lessons. Illya plays with the other children, and minds Olena, and pretends he doesn’t notice his mother dripping blood into the sink, pretends he doesn’t notice her exhaustion and the fact that the men are coming more rarely for her. 

(They still come, just less often for _her_ )

It is September. Illya wonders if she will last until the new year.

*

It is October. 

October means celebrations, even with the war, and Illya wishes it didn’t, even though they’re so important. 

His mother is weaker, weaker, weaker.

*

It is October.

“We’re moving,” says Illya’s mother. Illya nods. He goes to pack their things. He goes to say goodbye.

*

It is October. 

Their new apartment is a room in a bigger apartment. Many people live there. 

Illya’s mother lies in her bed, mostly. Sometimes things are delivered to them; Illya collects them, and then Illya’s mother goes out, and comes back so unsteady on her feet that Illya has to half-carry her inside. 

Sometimes Illya goes out. He doesn’t like that. He dreads the days when things are delivered to them.

*

It is October. 

There is an old woman in the apartment who is willing to watch Olena when Illya goes to school. Illya is glad of it. 

They do not have to climb stairs to get to their apartment. There is no chance that Olena will slip and fall down them. There are many children, though, and sometimes Illya watches them run up and down, up and down, racing and laughing. He is an outsider again. 

“When I was smaller,” he tells them, “a girl died from falling down the stairs. Her neck was broken.”

He mimics Yeva’s neck as best he can, the scene still vivid in his mind.   
The other children stare at him. He is one of the older ones, now. The fact is exhilarating and frightening all at once. 

“Her name was Yeva,” he adds, and somehow this is what convinces them to stop playing stair-chase. 

They play football, though. Illya has a ball, and so he is important. 

None of the other children will play more than a few games of chess with him. He misses Ivan. Ivan was his friend.

*

It is November. 

It’s getting cold, in November. Illya does not go out to play with the other children. Instead he makes soup and teaches Olena words and plays endless games of chess and soldiers with himself. 

He reads to Olena, sometimes, books that he took from his father’s study, three years and a lifetime ago. 

She doesn’t understand, but she likes sitting in his lap and listening to the words. Sometimes he sings to her, in the tiny room, on his bed with her in his lap and his mother a few feet away. His mother no longer sings. She lies there and coughs, and listens to Illya read, sometimes. 

Illya worries. About what will happen if, when, his mother dies. What will happen to Olena, who is still so small. What will happen to Illya, who is small too, even though he is growing tall, thirteen and not yet old enough to leave school, not old enough to look after his sister.

*

It is December. 

Cold, and snowy, and Illya hides in the room he shares with his mother and shoves his fear down into the tiny part of himself that holds the love he still has, shamefully, for his father. 

He gets into seven fights during December, seven fights he can barely remember, seven fights preceded by the ringing in his ears. 

His mother fades. Illya watches her. The colour leaches from her face, except the blood Illya wipes from around her mouth when she coughs into a basin. 

One day he comes in with a loaf of bread and a cabbage in his arms – dinner and breakfast, food that will keep him and Olena strong, if not his mother – and his mother is slumped by the door, dressed up to go out. 

“You can’t go anywhere,” he tells her, and he goes to put the food away and he comes back and helps her back inside, helps her take her shoes off, puts away the string of red beads he gave her. 

His mother lies there, pale, pale, and Illya wishes she was well enough to shout at him. She used to shout when he did something wrong. 

He goes out to make soup. The old woman who minds Olena – he does not know her name; she tells him to call her grandmother and it feels wrong to say the word, because he has no grandmother, has _never_ had a grandmother – is crooning to his sister, and Olena has her hand pressed to the old woman’s cheek. 

“Lya!” she says, when she sees her, her tiny face lighting up, “Lya!”

She squirms out of the old woman’s hold and stumbles over to him. She is so small it makes his stomach twist. 

“Hello,” he says, bending down to greet her. “I’m home.”

She wraps her tiny arms around his neck, and babbles into his ear. It is so reassuring that he rests his chin on her shoulder, and does not cry. 

*

It is December, and he is mugged in an alleyway. 

A man tries to steal his bread, probably, maybe, maybe because that’s not the only thing that he could have wanted and Illya is a child still and he knows how often adults assume a child is helpless. 

He sticks his knife, small but sharp enough to cut a hair, sharpened painstakingly by Illya, bought off a girl for four bars of chocolate and help with schoolwork, between the man’s ribs. 

Illya is thirteen years and four months and twenty-nine days old when he kills his first man, in an alleyway which serves as a shortcut on his way home, and he stands there with blood on his face, on his shoes, on his coat, but not on the carefully wrapped loaf of bread he carries, on his hand and his knife. 

He had not meant to do it. It wasn’t even a fight. 

Illya looks around, sees no one, no one to see what he has done, and then he wipes the worst of the blood off himself with his handkerchief and keeps walking. He does not look back. 

When he gets home his mother is alert enough to ask him what happened and he says, “I got into a fight,” and he puts down his bread and he pretends his hands aren’t shaking. 

It is not the first time he has seen death, not even the first time he has seen someone killed – he remembers being five or six and a man in a mask trying to kill his father and his father’s look of resignation as he raised his pistol, of the shot as loud as thunder and the man’s face afterwards, eyes as blank and empty as Yeva’s not-so-many years later– but it is the first time he has killed someone himself. 

He makes soup (beetroots and cabbage and whatever else he can find) and he puts Olena to bed and he reads a book he has read a hundred times before. 

He wakes up with tears on his face and he wipes them away and he pretends that he is alright. 

One of the other children finds the body in the alleyway, and Illya makes himself scarce when they talk about it. The blood on his coat never quite comes out right. 

He sharpens his knife, sharper, sharper, and he cuts his hair with it and pretends that’s all he ever wanted it for. 

He is made for killing. He is going to be a soldier. His mother wanted better for him, once, but Illya is a killer, and he will never do better than killing. 

Olena’s hair is soft under his fingers. He is almost afraid to touch her; she is so small and perfect and untainted by death or fears greater than the dark and the thunder they sometimes feel. She sleeps so easily. Illya wonders whether he ever slept like that. 

He does not sleep like that anymore.

*

It is January.


	5. 1945

It is January. 

There are no presents for Illya this year. He gives Olena his stuffed bear, and her face lights up. 

He is too old for it, anyway, but it hurts to part with the toy. It has been his all his life, and now it isn’t. 

His mother does not get out of bed. Illya goes out, sometimes, after school, and comes back drained and shaken. Olena cries for him when he leaves, unless she is with the old woman whose name Illya still doesn’t know. 

“Lya,” she says, the week after New Year’s Day, tugging at his blankets. 

She is already on the ground. Illya sits up, and rubs sleep out of his eyes, and looks at his sister. 

“What?”

“Lya,” she whines. Illya dresses quickly, and picks her up. 

She complains at him, about something. Illya doesn’t know what, and he has to go to school, and he has to get food because otherwise none of them eat, and it was all so much easier before Olena was born. 

Olena protests about getting dressed. She struggles and kicks and Illya has to restrain her hands before she tries to claw his eyes out. 

“Be quiet,” he tells her, as she starts to scream. He takes her out to the old woman whose name Illya doesn’t know and apologises for the noise and has to run to get to school on time. 

He is almost late. Illya hates to be late.

*

It is February.

The apartment is cold. 

Illya plays chess with himself, endless games. His mother no longer goes to work; instead she goes out every night, wearing her red bead necklace, and comes back exhausted. 

Illya goes to school. Illya goes to Young Pioneers meetings. 

Olena is troublesome. He wishes she wasn't.

*

It is February. 

Illya’s trousers are too short. 

The air gets up them, cold as ice, and stings at his skin. Olena cries in the night. Illya’s mother cries often. 

Illya does not cry. He is too old for crying. He is thirteen, and will be fourteen in the summer, and he is almost a man. 

He doesn’t cry. 

Olena screams when he tries to dress her. She screams when he tries to feed her. She screams when one of their neighbours asks him with icy, passive politeness, to try and keep the noise down. 

Illya’s mother improves. It is slow, and it is sure. Illya makes her soup with bones and cabbage and watches her eat it. 

She sings to Olena, sometimes, sings and sings until her voice fades, but she does not look at Illya.

*

It is March. 

March is spring, and getting less cold, and Illya looks forward to summer. The other children have stair races. Illya tries to warn them off, thinks of Yeva with her staring eyes and her bent neck, but they do not listen, this time.   
None of them have died playing on the stairs, after all, and it’s a game that everyone knows how to play. 

“Are you a coward?” one of the other boys asks. Illya looks at him. He is perhaps nine years old, and there is a cigarette hanging from his bottom lip. It isn’t lit. 

Illya takes it from him. The boy looks angry, but he says nothing. Illya is far bigger than he is. Four months ago he might have, but Illya has grown in the past four months. 

“I don’t think so,” Illya tells him, lighting the cigarette. He carries a box of matches in his pocket. He took them from an older boy after a fight.   
Illya has found that he can get away with a lot of things after a fight, like casually rummaging through the loser’s pockets.

“I think you are,” the boy decides. “You’re afraid of stairs.”

Illya sucks in smoke and considers. He isn’t afraid of stairs, not really, but every time he sees the other children running up and down them he sees Yeva, dead. 

“I’m not,” he tells the boy. The boy smirks at him. 

“You are so, and you’re a coward.”

Illya blinks. He tugs Olena over. She’s roaming around on her harness. 

Then he stubs out the cigarette and walks away. He isn’t going to argue with a little kid. 

“Coward!” yells the boy, and Illya considers turning around and smacking him. He doesn’t. He has Olena with him. Olena is small. Olena does not need to turn out like Illya. 

*

It is March. 

Illya gets into eighteen fights during March.

He doesn’t mean to. 

For seven of those fights his ears ring and his hands shake and his vision blurs and he comes to standing over whoever it was. 

At school the other children are afraid of him, but not afraid enough to stop taunting him, to stop jeering. Illya wishes they would stop, and hopes that they don’t.

*

It is April. 

April is warmer, above freezing mostly. 

Illya goes to school. Illya goes to Young Pioneers meetings. Illya plays football with the other children. Illya goes out at night. Illya looks after his mother, and he looks after his sister. 

Illya counts money out into piles and stares at it. Money for rent, money for food, money for the clothing that both he and Olena sorely need. 

Illya gets into twenty-two fights during April, and be breaks a boy’s arm because he called Illya a traitor. 

Illya isn’t a traitor. He would rather die.

*

It is April. It rains a lot in April. Illya isn’t allowed out of the building when it rains, and so he doesn’t go, even though his mother cannot stop him anymore; she is weak, and he is getting bigger, taller, stronger. 

The old man who lives two floors up and one apartment across and sometimes needs help on the stairs asks Illya if he’s going to join the army. 

“Yes,” Illya says, because he is, as soon as he’s old enough, as soon as he can find someone to look after Olena, as soon as he can. 

The old man looks approvingly at Illya. 

“Going to be tall, aren’t you.”

Illya nods.   
“Yes. One day.”

One day he will be taller than his father, even, who loomed during Illya’s childhood, gentle and quiet and a traitor. He will be better. He will be better than his father.

*

It is April.

Ustinya from two apartments along is going to have a baby. 

This wouldn’t be a very big deal – lots of people have babies, after all – except Ustinya is Illya’s age, or not much older, and sometimes she still plays stair chase even though by her age most of the girls go off and talk on their own.   
Illya still isn’t quite sure how you make babies. He is half tempted to ask her.

Ustinya’s brother, it turns out, is the boy who called Illya a coward, and since none of the girls will talk to Ustinya anymore she has been talking to Illya, and that means Illya has been spending more time with Ustinya’s brother too. 

Illya isn’t sure why she’s talking to him; he’s not very good at talking to people, and he isn’t a girl. 

Ustinya talks about lots of things. Very few of them actually interest Illya, but he sits on the landing with Olena on her leash and listens to Ustinya talk and it’s nice to be sort-of friends with someone again. 

It's April. Illya quite likes April.

*

It is May. 

Germany is surrendered, and Illya isn’t sure how he feels about that. The war has gone on forever, and not much time at all, really, and Illya worries that they won’t have need for soldiers anymore, now that the war is over.   
It worries him deeply. If he cannot be a soldier then he does not know what he will do.

*

It is May. 

May means Olena’s birthday, which mean’s she’s two years old. 

Illya gives her chocolate, and tells her it’s her birthday, which requires explanation of what a birthday is. Illya isn’t sure if Olena understands him or not, but he thinks she does, maybe, mostly. 

His mother has retreated to her bed. She no longer sings. Illya is sure she is dying, and also sure that no one can do anything about it. He knows his mother went to the doctor, once, twice, thrice, when she started getting sick. 

“Mama sad?” Olena asks, and Illya doesn’t know how to explain the difference; in their mother it is much the same, now. 

“No. She’s sick.”

Olena pokes at Illya’s face. 

“Sick?”

Illya nods. It is a school day. Illya dresses Olena against her protests and feeds her bread and hands her off to the old woman whose name he doesn’t know and can’t figure out despite repeated efforts and goes off to school. 

He gets into two fights on Olena’s birthday.

*

It is May. 

Ustinya has two older brothers. One is seventeen, almost an adult and too busy with learning to be interested in his younger siblings anyway, and the other is sixteen and takes one look at Illya and decides that he has found a protégé. 

Ustinya’s middle brother – she has three, including the chain-smoking younger one – is Bad News, the kind of person Illya’s mother used to tell him to stay away from. Ustinya’s middle brother is part of a gang. 

Illya isn’t sure he wants to be part of a gang, but he _is_ sure that he doesn’t have much of a choice. He becomes good at breaking into apartments, and he becomes good at climbing buildings and fences and jumping from roof to roof. 

He refuses to steal, though. Theft is what his father did, and his father is a traitor, and so stealing is treachery, almost. 

He doesn’t tell this to Ustinya’s brother, though, or to the gang. They would kick him out. Illya isn’t sure he wants to be kicked out.

*

It is June. June means football outside, and it means warmth, and it means his mother gets a little better. 

She talks to Olena. Illya does not worry when he goes out at night.

Illya is in a gang, now, and that makes him Bad, but he goes to school and to Young Pioneers meetings and he looks after his sister and his mother and he sits outside on the steps and listens to Ustinya talk. 

Ustinya worries a lot. She worries about the same things Illya does – about her parents, about money, about a baby, although in her case it’s her unborn child and in Illya’s case it’s the sibling he didn’t really want but would probably kill to protect, if he had to. 

Illya is good at football. Sometimes the other boys taunt him because he’s friends with a girl. The older ones, the ones who are Illya’s age, or the ones who are older, even, want to be friends with girls, but not in the same way that Illya is friends with Ustinya. Sometimes he fights them, and he usually wins. 

Mostly he plays football, though, and ignores them, and sits on the steps with Ustinya afterwards.

*

It is June. 

“What’s the leash for?” Ustinya asks. It’s afternoon, after school, and Illya’s face is slicked with sweat from football. 

“What?” he asks, opening his eyes. It’s warm. Hot almost. He likes it when it’s warm. 

“Your sister’s leash.”

Illya tugs Olena back from the ongoing football game and says, “she could fall down the stairs, if she gets away from me, or get hit by a car, or trampled by a horse, or stepped on by someone who isn’t looking where they’re going.”

Ustinya blinks. Illya turns his head to look at her. 

“How do you make a baby?” he asks, because she has asked a question and so it is his turn. Ustinya goes red, though, red like a sunset, and asks him how he could say something like that. 

Illya stares at her. He doesn’t understand. 

“I don’t understand,” he says. Ustinya goes even redder, and tells him how babies are made, quietly, so no one else can hear. 

“Oh,” Illya says. “That.”

There is silence, apart from all the noise around them.   
“Who’d you make a baby with?” he asks, and Ustinya goes red again and stands up and doesn’t talk to him for three days, which is, he decides after he thinks about it for a while, probably fair.

*

It is July. 

Illya plays football, and he plays soldiers, and he does exercises to build muscle so the army will take him when he’s old enough. 

Illya counts the days until his birthday, until he’s fourteen, until it’s four years until he’s eighteen and he can join the army. 

He doesn’t know what he will do with Olena when he joins the army. Perhaps he will get married, and his wife will mind her. Olena will be six by then, anyway. 

Illya counts days, ten-eleven-twelve-thirteen-fourteen-fifteen-sixteen-seventeen-eighteen-nineteen-twenty-twenty-one-twenty-two-twenty-three-twenty-four- _twenty-five_. 

He buys new trousers on his birthday. They’re too long for him, but he is still growing quickly, and he will need the length. He rolls them up and puts in several stitches which he can take out later.

*

It is July. 

Illya gets into twenty-seven fights in July. He has begun counting them. The number increases each month, and Illya doesn’t like it. He is losing control more easily, and he is fighting in a half-dream state more often, and he doesn’t like that either. 

Illya’s mother sickens again. Illya makes soup. Soup is good for the sick. The old woman whose name he does not know tells him this. 

He teaches Ustinya to play chess. She isn’t good as any of his previous friends, but she is willing to play endless games as long as he listens to her. 

Ustinya’s stomach has swelled huge, like Illya’s mother’s before Olena was born, like all the expectant women Illya has ever met. He asks if it hurts. 

“A bit,” Ustinya says, frowning. “I’m not sure if it’s supposed to. No one will tell me.”

Illya nods. 

“It hurts when you have the baby,” he offers, “it sounds like it, anyway.”

No one tells Illya anything about babies, or how the production of babies works, because Illya is a boy and fourteen besides.   
Ustinya nods. 

“That’s what my mama said, when she found out.”

Illya bites at a chess piece. He tugs Olena back from the stairs and asks, “who’d you make the baby with? Is he at our school?”

Ustinya smiles. 

“He’s a soldier,” she says, and Illya looks at her, dubious. 

“Really?” he asks, and Ustinya nods and Illya offers her some of his chocolate because he is fond of Ustinya, even if she is terrible at chess.

*

It is August, and Illya’s mother sinks into despair. Olena cries for her, asks Illya if their mother is sick, if she’s sad, and Illya can’t tell which it is or if it’s both. 

She cries. Illya hates it when his mother cries. 

Illya leaves the apartment early, most days, returns only to eat and even then for very little time, and sometimes he sleeps on the landing, curled up in a ball with two blankets over him and Olena’s harness tied to his wrist to avoid the noise. 

His mother is dying. He does not know how to tell Olena.

*

It is August. 

Ustinya has her baby in August. It is a boy, and it looks sort of like a squished frog and sort of like a potato and it’s red all over.   
Ustinya is worried about that, but Illya tells her that’s how Olena looked too, when she was newly born. 

Olena is endlessly fascinated by the baby. Illya tells her that she was a baby too, once, and she says, very firmly, “no. No baby,” which seems to amuse Ustinya. 

Ustinya’s parents aren’t happy with her. Babies are a lot of work. She hasn’t told them who the baby’s father is, or so Illya gathers from overheard conversations and the fact that Ustinya’s father pulls him aside one afternoon two days after the baby’s born and asks, roughly, “did _you_ fuck my daughter?” and Illya just blinks at him. 

“No?” he says, because it’s the truth, and then, because it is also the truth, “if I had I would take responsibility for the baby.”

He tugs at Olena’s leash and points. Ustinya’s father seems reassured by this. 

“Right. Right.”

Then he pats Illya on the head and walks off. This is more confusing than anything else, and Illya stands there for several minutes before he goes to make dinner. 

There were better ways to ask that, probably. Illya can’t think of any, but there probably were.

*

It is September. 

Illya goes to school. Illya goes to young Pioneers meetings. Illya plays football with the other boys and he plays chess with Ustinya and he helps take care of the baby. 

Ustinya calls the baby Pytor, which Illya thinks is a good name and Ustinya’s parents object strongly to it.

Ustinya is getting better at chess. Illya helps her take care of the baby. He likes babies, when he isn’t responsible for them.

*

It is September. 

Illya falls off a roof. 

He didn’t mean to fall off a roof. There is a second where he is sure he is going to die, even though, if he stops to think about it, the roof isn't high enough to kill anyone. Fear is not logical, though, and so for that second he is terrified.

He doesn’t die. Illya is glad of that. He is also more careful on roofs in future, although he doesn’t admit that to Ustinya’s brother and the gang. 

He gets into twenty-eight fights during September, one for almost every day. Some of these are related to the gang, and some are stupid, but most start with his ears ringing and end with someone bleeding on the ground, and the bleeder usually isn’t him.

*

It is September. Illya’s mother sickens again. 

Illya makes her soup with bones in it, soup with blood. He tries to get her to go to the doctor. He worries. It is hard not to. 

Olena does not ask about their mother anymore. Perhaps she has gotten used to it. 

He tries to teach Olena chess. It doesn’t work. The old woman who minds Olena during the day and who still won’t tell Illya her name says that Olena is too young. That’s probably true.

*

It is November. 

Illya’s mother weakens. Her hair begins to turn white. It terrifies Illya. It terrifies him more than the coughing, more than the fading, more than her inability to stand, now, without assistance. It is physical, visible, certain proof that there is something wrong. 

He counts money out – rent-food-clothing – and slides the money allocated for clothing into a tin under his bed. It is very little, but it’s something. It is security.

He worries. He worries that when his mother dies he and Olena will be separated. He worries that when his mother dies he will never see Olena again, that he will have nothing left. 

He worries that he will catch whatever it is his mother has, or that Olena will, that they already have it. 

Illya worries about many things. He is not afraid of any of them.

*

It is November. 

It snows. Olena is fascinated by the snow, although she has seen it before. She wants to touch it, to play in it, and when Illya lets her she screams because she gets cold and when he doesn’t she screams because he won’t let her. 

There is no winning with toddlers.

*

It is November. 

Illya sits on the landing with Olena and Ustinya and the baby Pytor, most days, and they play chess. Sometimes Illya plays chess by himself and listens to Ustinya talk. Ustinya seems happy; soon she will be fifteen, and her soldier will be home soon. December, she tells him. 

Her soldier isn’t much older than they are, she says. He isn’t yet nineteen. Illya cannot imagine being that old, and he wants, desperately, to be. 

He says, “my mother is going to die.”

Ustinya’s eyes go wide. She asks him why. 

“I don’t know. She’s sick.”

There is silence on the landing. 

“People die,” he tells her. Ustinya nods. 

“Yes,” she agrees. 

They go back to playing chess.

*

It is December. 

Illya goes to school. Illya goes to Young Pioneers meetings. Illya goes home and makes soup and feeds it to his mother like he used to feed Olena. 

His mother does not cry anymore.

*

It is December. 

Illya sits on his bed and plays chess. Olena whines to go out, but he cannot leave his mother, will not leave his mother unless he has to. 

He goes to school and to Young Pioneers meetings and he comes home and listens to his mother’s laboured breathing and his sister’s complaints. 

Sometimes Ustyina comes to visit. She says that the room smells like sickness. It probably does. Illya is inured to the smell. 

Illya gets into no fights during December.

*

It is December. 

Illya goes to sleep to the sound of his mother’s laboured breathing. When he wakes it is gone. When he puts a hand to his mother’s wrist it is cold. 

He picks up Olena and backs out of the room. 

“Mama sick?” Olena asks, and Illya presses a hand to his eyes and said, “mama’s dead, Olena,” and Olena stares at him. 

“Dead?” she asks, and Illya sits on the floor by the door and sets her down and buries his face in his hands. His father’s watch ticks by his ear, tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock. 

“Dead,” he tells her, and he does not know how to explain.

*

It is December, and then, suddenly, abruptly, unsurprisingly, it is January.


End file.
